Samsung’s mobile phone portfolio grows ever larger, and while the differences can be hard to distinguish, the Galaxy Apollo does have its niche, at least as far as the marketeers are concerned. It is aimed at the connected lifestyles of younger people who want social networking tools at their fingertips.
Samsung Galaxy Apollo …

So anyway... when the Orange San Francisco review?

I've got bored waiting for an Orange San Francisco review and I've order one and it arrives tomorrow -- but it's a similar spec to the Sammy, but has a 480x800 OLED capacitive screen and only costs £99. I know I keep banging on about this phone like I work for Orange (I don't btw!), but it does seem like a significant product in that it's price rather under cuts... pretty much everything by a significant margin. It deserves a review!!!

Kittys!

Battery?

The web is alive with people complaining about the battery in the Apollo - from suddenly registering a 40% drop in charge to taking over 4 hours to fully re-charge. And this review says nothing about power-pack life at all! Hmmm...

I've got one

and it is a decent enough phone which was a free upgrade from Orange on the monthly plan I pay for. I wanted an HTC Desire, but was not prepared to pay the £150 they wanted as an upgrade charge (I'm tight-fisted, I know).

The only serious problems with it that I can really point to is that 400x240 is really too small a resolution to browse, although pinch to zoom does make it a bit more bearable, and that I had to change the settings on the GPS receiver in order to make it work at all.

Other minor niggles that are specific to the phone are that it requires a strong WiFi signal, it's performance is significantly worse than any of the laptops I have in the house. Also, the battery indicator is inaccurate. The other day it dropped from 50% to 15% (the low battery warning point) in about 10 minutes while browsing the Android Market over Wifi. 2 days moderate use with data and Wifi exhausts the battery.

Finger marks are very obvious, and I end up polishing them off every time I use it.

Most of the Orange apps require connections via data services and will not work over WiFi.

I have other problems with it, but they are mostly Android related. My previous phone was a Palm Treo 650, and I am finding the reliance on data services that Android imposes for pretty much everything bugs me. I had only a small data allowance on my phone plan that I blew in about 10 minutes when I first got the phone. I ended up changing the APN, just to stop it connecting, and then virtually nothing worked. Most apps that checked the state of the data connection would hang for 30-40 seconds when starting. My Palm had complete control of the data connection, and apps would start up just as quick whether or not the data services are enabled. As I said, this is an Android issue.

I find the array of settings that Android and Samsung offer difficult to navigate, but I guess that is inevitable when phones get so complex.

Other than that it works as a phone, the audio and video performance is acceptable to good, and although it is slower than a Desire, you get used to it. I've yet to find an app that does not work. I'll do for a while.